


The Quick and the Dead

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [465]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 19:02:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: Anonymous askedAlan and quicksand?





	The Quick and the Dead

Gordon, Alan reflected, was to revenge like Michelangelo was to ceiling painting.

This must have taken him months. Either that, or he’d just developed the revenge before the insult, and had just been waiting for a chance to unleash the monster.

Alan had lost a flip-flop, and his toes could just about get purchase on something that could be a smooth rock, could be metal.  It still meant that the sand was halfway up his chest.  Alan could feel a cool stream of air bubbling into the sand, and mentally added Virgil to the tally of people he needed to either beg forgiveness of, or possibly just murder in their sleep.

It must have taken them days to dig out the little sandy patch on the path from the villa to the beach, replace the hard pack with loose, fine sand, and set up the blower to turn it all into a quicksand trap.  With his head now at path level, Alan had had plenty of time to spot the motion trigger tucked away under some nearby foliage.  As soon as he’d flipped the switch, the air had turned on and the sand Alan was standing on had the resistance of a cloud.

“Hey Alan.  How’s things?”

Gordon’s voice is loud, brash, and breezy as he thumps down the path and drops to an easy crouch just beyond the puddle of sand.

Alan tried to match him.  “Oh, you know, just hanging out.”  He winced slightly.  “Getting sand in all of the places.”  He gave up the pretense.  “Whatever I did, tell me, so I can apologize for it and  _get out of here_.”

Gordon stood up.  “Oh,” he grinned evilly.  “It’s not me you have to apologize to.”

He stepped aside, and a gust of wind shook the branches, changing the shades of sunlight and shadow on the path as John stepped forward with the gravitas of a Bond villain.

Alan gasped.  “Et tu, John?”

“Remember those stupid tricks you were pulling on your board last week outside of Five, Alan,” John said with foreboding.  “And remember how I said to be careful.  And remember how you said, and I quote,  _unclench, Johnny_?”

Alan winced; the mark the barely-recovered swerve had made looked so like an asteroid graze, Alan was sure John would never notice.  “Sorry?” he tried, knowing that his fate was already sealed.

John folded his arms and shook his head like a vengeful god.  “It’s too late for sorry.” He turned to Gordon.  “Release the kraken.”

Gordon cackled and pulled out a remote.  Alan had just enough time to sigh in relief as the air stopped the sand bubbling, giving him traction.  Then the net he’d failed to notice strung up high in the trees above him let go, and dumped several buckets of stinking, rotten kelp on his head.

Alan coughed as the smell overwhelmed his senses.  He shook his head, but the strands of kelp clung and slithered around him.  “Hose him off before you let him back up the house,” he heard John say to Gordon’s cheerful cackling.

Alan gritted his teeth and hauled himself out of the sandtrap.  He could barely see, but at this point he didn’t care.  Zeroing in on the nearest brother, Alan started to run, tackling what turned out to be Gordon to the ground and wrapping him in a kelp-and-sand bearhug.

“Traitor!” Gordon yelled as John’s laugh faded back up the path.  


End file.
